Social Networking Sites

Social networking has become one of the most popular forms of new media.  The amount of people who communicate and have profiles on these sites in general continues to show steady growth.  There are many social networks with many similar and unique features.  Facebook has become the most successful and populous of these sites but other social networking sites have great features. 

Facebook’s rise as the most popular social network with over 500 million users is not surprising.  Its interface is very streamlined and simple.  Users are able to join networks based on location, schools, and businesses.  It hosts photos, which can now be uploaded at high quality.  Wall posts and comments are easy to manage. Facebook’s messaging system is the best of the social networks. Facebook’s search is speedy and useful.  Finding users and groups are really simple and fast.  Among other great features are the numerous applications that the platform supports and the integration of many websites, mobile applications and games.  However, it is easy to see how many people might get confused on how to go about setting their privacy and account setting to their liking.  There are many layers of settings that can leave a user confused.  The ever-growing number of applications that request access to your information compounds this problem.

MySpace is the social network that got replaced as the most popular by Facebook.  MySpace profiles are highly customizable with html codes that are readily available online. Recently, a more streamlined design to the site has been implemented.  A news feed similar to that of Facebook is now in the user’s home page.  MySpace is a great music discovery tool since its artist pages are great.  Music players embedded in page profiles also extend music discovery.

Hi5 is the first social network that I joined as a teenager.  The site looks a lot like MySpace.  Profiles can be customized with various patterns and there is messaging functionality.  However, there was a lot of spam coming through in my inbox.  The music player is great and is also a great music discovery tool.  Like MySpace and Facebook, privacy can be customized as to who can view your profile.  Hi5 seems to be really popular in South America, from where most of my friends joined. 

Twitter is a bit different from MySpace, Facebook and Hi5.  The site focuses on short messages sent out to the public.  Twitter is great for following celebrities and friends.  It can also act as a supplement or even a replacement for an RSS feed. News is not put out on twitter very quickly, and links to news and blogs can be included for further reading.

There are many social networks of various popularity and functionality.  Most share a lot of similar features, but there are always some distinguishing features among them.  I think Facebook will continue to dominate the social networking arena, but Twitter will also have strong gains in the number of active users.